


A stone in the clearing

by BrickWallWritesStuff



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: 1950s, Gen, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 09:12:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13361385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrickWallWritesStuff/pseuds/BrickWallWritesStuff
Summary: Ruth Pines never believed in the supernatural, at least not honestly. But her youngest son, Stanley, was a strange one. He seemed to be a normal child at first. But one day, he began to display "peculiar behavior". It seems to end there, but nothing is as it seems. He was only two years old when it happened, and it seemed to last until she was six. But what was the meaning of it all? Why was the sky "on fire"?





	A stone in the clearing

Now she was not the kind of person who believed in demons or ghosts. She may have confronted many people who claimed to have been haunted, but never believed a word they said. She would just tell those goons who she called customers that she could make all their problems go away if they paid her twenty-five dollars and fifty-five cents (And not a penny less).

Ruth Pines was a headstrong woman. She was born sometime in the1920s as the youngest of ten children. Her mother, who everyone just called Al, had managed to pop out ten kids before dying from the flu in just short of a month since she was born. Meg, the second youngest sister had also passed from the flu just a week after her Al. There was a family legend that Meg, twin sister of Belle, had put a curse on the family. Gil, Al’s oldest child, had said that every set of twins born from the family would be cursed, because “Meg’s twin had to celebrate her birthdays without her”. He didn’t say what the curse was, but if it had anything to do with demonic possession, then the curse may as well have been real.

When she turned twenty, she married the balkiest man in her neighborhood. Filbrick was the son the son of a local merchant. And his father happened to be Emanuel “Eman” Pines, whom Ham considered an enemy to their family. But before he got a chance to contest the wedding, he had hit and killed by a hearse. She would have laughed at this fact if the man who had died wasn’t her father. One month after the funeral, they married, and another nine months after the wedding, Ruth gave birth to her first child.

Filbrick named him Sherman after his grandfather who’d fought in the civil war. Perhaps he thought giving the boy this name would make him automatically tough. But he was a timid boy, by age ten he had learned how to play the piano and wished to become a musician. Which his father didn’t encourage, fearing that he wouldn’t make it very far.

His middle name was her name, as she had insisted that her maiden name not be passed on. Her birth name was Ruth Gass, as strange as it sounded. She didn’t want any of her kids to have to explain that this was their middle name and that it was not fake. They had decided that their second child’s middle name would be Filbrick, and their third would be Ruth, and so on.

Eleven years after she gave birth to Sherman, she had twin boys. It was a real shock to the family, as they had been only expecting one kid at a time. Filbrick had wanted to give the older twin up for adoption, ( likely because of his “birth defect.”) but Ruth managed to convince him to let her keep the boys.  
The first year with the twins was fairly normal. Filbrick insisted on having their boys wear mittens, and would probably have them wear them as long as he could get away with. He did not want everyone asking what was wrong with the older twin’s hands.

Before they knew that they were having twins, their father had said that he would name the child Stan. He had chosen that name because the book of names they kept in the living room said that it meant stone. Filbrick liked to give his children names that he thought would somehow affect their personality. ( Although they never did.) The doctor came out and said the they had twins, he had tried to give them the same name. But Ruth had argued with him and instead of giving them the exact same name, the boys ended up with almost the same names. The older twin was named Stanford, and the younger Stanley, meaning “stony meadow” and “Stony clearing” respectively.

Sherman had spent an entire day trying to come up with nicknames for the boys.

“Little Stan and big Stan?” He suggested.

His father replied with a grunt.

“How about Billy and Bobby?”

“Those are cartoon characters.”

“Yeah, but can we call them that?”

Sherman came up with a new nickname for the twins every day. One day they were Orville and Wilbur and other days they were Sherlock and Watson. It was the boy’s obsession for a long time. It was only the discovery a new comic book series that ended that obsession.

The two years of the boys’ lives were not any different than her first child’s. The boys learned to walk and learned to talk. The doctor even said that they were developing faster than anticipated, which was a good sign.

The first time she noticed something was off was just two days after their third birthday. It was a Monday, and probably the hottest day of the year. Few stores were open and local daycares were closed.

The boys had spent the day playing at the beach. Sherman had competed with his friend in a game of tennis and Stanley had swallowed a cup of sand. And after he discovered how bad it tasted, he tricked his twin into tasting it too.

Sherman passed out from exhaustion as soon as they got home. Ruth had to carry the boy to his room while Filbrick herded the giggling toddlers into the house. The family had quieted down after the long day. The summer heat had finally begun to relent as the sun neared the horizon. Outside, the sky burned a vibrant red. She was sure that all the artists who lived in those mansions by the sea were attempting to pain this image before it faded. Stanley and Stanford stared out the window, seemingly mesmerized by the sunset.

Stanford whispered something to his brother, and Stanley replied just as softly. And after that the younger twin ran up the stairs. Ruth watched this display and chuckled, she wondered what he boys were up to.

About three minutes later, the calm of that evening was interrupted by the sound of Sherman came trampling down the stairs and shouting at the top of his lungs. He was carrying his younger brother in his arms, who looked just as confused as everyone else.

“What?” Sherman asked at the bottom of the stairs. He took a brief pause in order to catch his breath.

“Where is it?”

“What were you expecting to see?” Ruth asked.

“I..” He stuttered. “Stanley told me that there was a fire.”  
He put his brother down and sat on the bottom step of the stairs. “He woke me up and repeated the word fire a lot. I wanted to make sure everyone was ok.”  
The tense atmosphere in the room subsided with his explanation. Filbrick returned to reading his newspaper and Stanford returned to staring out the window.

“Stanley,” Ruth asked her son. “Where did you see a fire?”  
He pointed at the window and repeated the word he had said to his brother previously.

“Fire.”

Ruth smiled and shook her head. “That’s just a sunset.”  
“  
No, fire.” Stanley scampered over to the window and pressed his hands against the glass. “Hot.”

“Today was just a warm day, that’s all.”

“No, no,” He repeated, a bit more insistently than before. “Fire.”

“Sweetie, it’s nothing to be afraid of.” Ruth explained.

At this, Stanley cocked his head in confusion. “I’m not scared.”

“Oh?”

“I think it’s pretty!” Stanley chirped. “Do you?”

“Yes,” His mother replied. “It is rather pretty.”

Her voice wavered a bit in her reply. She tried to make it sound as sincere as she could, but he mind had swifty wandered.

“I really like it!” His eyes sparkled as he made this declaration. Ruth stared into his eyes, something in his expression caught her attention. Something that was completely  
alien, but seemed human in it’s own way.

And as soon as that strange expression had appeared, it had vanished. It was replaced by his normal childish grin. Stanley broke the gaze and giggled innocently. He then cried out “Jump” before tackling his brother, who had moved to the rug while she wasn’t looking. Stanford cried out before squealing with laughter.

Ruth was left with a strange feeling in her chest as she sat back down. Thoughts raced through her head as she tried to subdue her unease.  
It was believable that a child his age might think that a sunset was a fire. He was too young to understand why it was so hot. It could have been a way for him to make sense of something that was new to him.

What bothered her was how insistent he was. The fact that he had thought the “fire” was beautiful. And that look in his eyes...  
Was this some sort of warning sign of a budding arsonist?

No, of course not. Ruth was just being paranoid. The pressure of having two babies at a time was getting to her. Stanley was as normal as a Pines boy could be. And Pines were known for being a little out of the ordinary. 

The little boys continued to play on the carpet as if nothing had happened. Stanford didn’t seem at all bothered by what his brother had said. He was too caught up in the nonsensical story that they had managed to come up with using only three wooden animals and a boat. Ruth shook her head and laughed off her unease. She decided it would be best if she read a little, to get her mind off of her worries.

Ruth only realized that she had dozed off when she heard the old grandfather clock that Filbrick kept in the shop downstairs chime ten times. Falling asleep while reading was nothing new to her.  
With a sigh, she closed the dusty old book and rested it on the arm of the couch and stood up.

An open window let a cool draft into the house. That cool air was illuminated by a single lamp by the window, which bathed the room in a gentle orange aura. Save for a single lamp in the neighbor’s window, the world outside appeared to be made of inky darkness. The distant sounds of seagulls and the rushing sea could be heard, along with the crickets singing in the local park.

“A new moon.” Ruth muttered to herself. She rested her arms on the window and peered outside.  
The chilled air caused a shiver to run down her spine. Ruth yawned and wrapped herself in a quilted blanket that she had been gifted by her brother on her thirtieth birthday.

Once she was sure that the blanket was securely wrapped around her shoulders, she walked over to the lamp in order to turn it off. Sherman must have snuck out of his room and turned it on. He had an extreme fear of the dark that, even at the age of twelve, always wanted at least one light on in the house. His parents had never given in to his requests. They knew better than to waste money over something as trivial as a childhood fear.

This had been an ongoing war since Sherman was five years old, and would probably continue until he either outgrew this fear or moved out. His parents would wake up to see the light turned on. Filbrick would call for Sherman, who would get a whack on the head with the daily newspaper and would have to do an extra chore. This had become routine at this point. The only thing that surprised her was the fact that he had turned it back on before she went to bed.  
But with closer inspection of the lamp, she could see something was different.  
The grip had been ripped off of the knob and what remained was covered in a thick substance which appeared to be butter.

“Real funny.” Ruth muttered to herself.

She, with a huff of impatience, turned away from the lamp. She would need a paper towel in order to get a grip on the knob. She took a few steps toward the kitchen, and stopped in her tracks.

In the hallway, small figure stood fixed in place. The figure’s large brown eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. At first, he just stared at her for a while. And then, his mouth curved into a crafty grin.

“Stanley? What are you doing out of bed?”

He responded by tossing a small silver disk onto the ground. This disk bounced a few times before landing at her feet.

“Stanley, wha-”

“The knob.” He stated.

Ruth knelt down an inspected the object, and she happened to find that this object was the missing Knob.

“Stanley, did your brother put you up to this?”

His smile widened, as did his eyes.

“It’s secret!”

“Sweetie, it’s bad to keep secrets from your family.”

He cocked his head at his mother’s statement.

“Why?” He asked. “You tell lies.”

“W-what?” She shuttered. His gaze seemed to tear through her sense of security.

“You lie a lot.”

“Lying and keeping secrets are different.

How did he, a two year old child, know about her fraudulency.

“Are they?”

“I-”

“I thought so.” He stated, interrupting her before she even got a chance to retort.

His expression was pensive and filled with intensity. Her son was trying to control her in some way, that she could tell. But what he wanted from her was buried deep within his brown eyes.

Ruth had always been good at reading expressions. This was necessary for a profession that required tricking people out of their money. Even though she rarely saw her customers in person, when she did , it came in handy in those occasions.  
Ruth decided that she should try one of her own con artist techniques to combat his attempts.

“Sherman told me that he put you up to this.”

“No he didn’t” Stanley replied.

Damn, this child was smart.

“You can’t trick me, Ma!” He announced frivolously.

Then, his cheerful expression faded back into that stone-faced glare.

“Never…” He hung on the last word for a few seconds.

He was silent for an uncomfortably long time. His eyes locked with hers, perhaps attempting to read her mind. Ruth shivered, trying to think of some explanation for his strange behavior.

It was Stanley who finally broke the unsettling silence.

“Night-night!” Stanley chirped. 

His usual bubbly grin had returned to his face. Before she even had a chance to respond, he scampered down the hallway and flung his bedroom door open. He disappeared into the darkness, and , when he didn’t come back out. Ruth took in a deep breath and finally turned that power draining lamp off.  
When she peered through the doorway of the boys’ room. She found that that both Stanley and his twin were sound asleep in their baby blue toddler beds. Stanley’s breathing was soft and subdued, as if he had been asleep for hours. She swiftly shook off her unease and entered their bedroom as quietly as she could and kissed her sons goodnight, all while trying not to wake them.

When she left their room, she gently shut their door and sighed.

“He’s an odd one, isn’t he.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to update this regularly, although I'm not very good at schedules.  
> This story is based on a fan theory that I can't say right now because It is a spoiler. I'll put a link to the theory when it comes up in the story.  
> I appreciate feedback and constructive criticism. I don't appreciate insults and people being rude. Please try to be nice when giving feedback, it makes me much more willing to consider your advice.  
> I hope you have a nice day!


End file.
